soon after his adventures with warrigal, harry lawson had a tutor to teach him instead of miss smith, and when harry was twelve, his cousin, donald m‘intyre, who was about his own age, came to live at wonga-wonga to share the tutor’s instructions. harry considered this a very jolly arrangement. like most australian boys, he was a very quick little fellow, but he was inclined to be rather lazy over his lessons; and donald helped him in his latin and french exercises, and made his sums come right for him, and yet was just as ready for a spree out of school as harry was. donald, too, had been born in the colony, and so the two boys got on famously together.
21
one christmas the tutor had gone down to spend his holidays in sydney, and harry and donald could do just as they liked. the papers were full of some traces of leichhardt, the brave australian explorer, that had recently been discovered, and the boys, of course, had read “robinson crusoe” also; and so they resolved to set out on a secret exploring expedition. they determined to go by water, because that would be both more like robinson crusoe, and more of a change for them. they were very fond of riding, but still they were as used to riding as english boys are to playing at “foot it,” and they had been only once or twice in the “cot” which a north of ireland man, who had come to the station as a bush carpenter, had finished the week before, that the station people might be able to cross the creek in time of flood, when no horse could swim it or ford it.
22
one broiling december day—there is no frost or snow, you know, in australia at christmas-time—harry and donald slipped down to the cot directly after breakfast. they had a gun with them, and caps, and powder, and shot, and colonial matches in brown paper boxes, and some tea, and sugar, and flour, and three parts of a huge damper (that’s a great flat round cake of bread without any yeast in it), and a box of sardines and a can of preserved salmon, that sydney had given them out of the store, and some salt, and two pannikins, and a jack shea (that’s a great pot) to boil their tea in, and a blanket to cover them by night, and to hoist now and then as a sail by day. the cot had no mast, but they meant to use one of the oars for that, and they had cut a tea-tree pole to serve for a yard.
23
they were going up the creek, not down. they knew that the creek ran into the kakadua at jerry’s town that way, and, of course, as explorers, they wanted to go where they had not been before. so they shipped their stores, and untied the painter—it was twisted round an old gum tree on the creek-side—and pushed off from the bank, and began to try to pull up stream. but they could not row nearly so well as they could ride, and at first they made the cot spin round like a cockchafer on a pin. they were sharp little fellows, however, and soon got under way, only catching crabs when they tried to feather.
24
by the time they got abreast of three-mile flat, though, their arms ached; and harry stopped pulling, as he made out, to tell donald again about warrigal, and donald stopped pulling, as he made out, to listen to harry, although he knew the story by heart. then they gave a spurt, and then they stopped pulling again, and hoisted their blanket on one oar, and tried to steer with the other; but it was a long time before they could manage this properly. the sail was for ever flapping against the mast—taken aback, as the sailors say—or else the cot was poking her nose into the tea-tree scrub on one side of the creek or the other, as if she wanted to get out of the hot sunlight into the moist shade. still, it would have been very pleasant, if there had not been quite so many mosquitoes; but they hummed over the water in restless clouds like fountain-spray. however there were native vines, with grapes like yellow currants, twining round the lanky tea trees and lacing them together; and the bell-birds kept on dropping down into the scrub, and flying up into the gum trees, and calling ting-ting, ting-ting. it sounded like a dinner-bell, and the boys determined to take an early dinner. they ate up almost all their damper, and all their sardines, and picked their dessert off the wild vines.
25
on they went again; but they had not gone far before they came to what is called in australia a “chain of ponds.” the creek had partly dried up, and they had to pull and push the cot from one pond to another. this was hard work, and not very pleasant work either, for the sand-flies got into the corners of their eyes as if they wanted to give them the blight, and the leeches crawled up their trousers and turned their white socks red with blood. their heads throbbed so that they could hardly bear to hear the locusts—thousands of them—clattering on the trees like iron-ship wrights hammering, and they felt quite angry when the long-tailed, brown coach-whip bird flew by, making a noise just like a slavedriver cracking his lash. at last, however, they got into clear water again—clear except for the grey snags and sawyers—and paddled lazily along; listening to the twittering wood-swallows as they dipped their blue wings into the water, and the great, black, sharp-winged swifts screaming for joy as they tacked high overhead. harry and donald could not help wishing that the cot (which they had christened the endeavour, in honour of captain cook) would dart along of herself like the swifts.
26
it had taken such a time to get her through the chain of ponds, that evening was coming on. great flocks of cockatoos were circling round their roosting-trees like english rooks, and parrots and lories—their fine green, and red, and blue, and yellow feathers beginning to look very dull and ragged, because moulting-time was near—were taking their evening bath in the shallow water by the banks, splashing it over their heads and wings, and chattering as if they were saying, “isn’t this prime fun?” presently the cockatoos lighted on the dark trees, and made them look as if a hundred or two of ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs had been hung out to dry on them, and then the boys thought it was time to find a roosting-place themselves. they pushed the cot into a little bay in the bank, and fastened her to an old black stump, and then they scooped a hole in the ground for a fireplace, and gathered sticks, and lighted a fire. but when they were going to cook their supper, they found that they had lost their flour, and that their sugar-bag had got so wet that there was only a little sweet mud left in it. but that did not matter nearly so much as the loss of the flour. they boiled their tea, and sweetened it with the mud, and after a good deal of trouble they got the salmon-tin open. harry, who was very hungry, was for finishing the salmon and what was left of the damper; but donald said,
27
“no; we must go on allowance now—we’ll keep half for to-morrow’s breakfast, because, perhaps, we shan’t be able to shoot anything to-night—that’s how explorers manage.”
when supper was over, the moon had risen, and the boys went down with their gun to the creek to see if they could shoot a duck. the dark water was plated in patches with ribbed and circling silver, and, just in the middle of one of the patches, up came a black something like a bottle.
28
“hush! it’s a water-mole,” whispered harry; but before he could point his gun at it the queer duck-billed thing had gone under again. the boys found no ducks, and did not go very far to look for them. they were tired, and had had their supper, and were sure of a breakfast. so they soon went back to their fire, piled more sticks on it, and then, snuggling under their blanket, fell asleep. they said their prayers before they fell asleep beneath the bright moon and stars, and, as they said them, they thought for the first time that they had not done quite right in leaving wonga-wonga without letting any one there know that they were going.
29
when they woke in the morning, the sun was up, and the glossy magpies were hopping about the logs, and everything looked cheerful. the boys took a dip in the creek, and boiled their tea, and had their breakfast, and then away they went again in high spirits, although now they had no food except what they might shoot or catch. the kingfishers in their blue coats and yellow waistcoats were darting backwards and forwards over the water, and the fussy little sedge-warblers were dodging about the reeds, and twittering a little bit of every bird’s song they could think of; but they weren’t worth powder and shot. by noon—they could tell the time pretty well by the sun—both harry and donald felt very hungry, for they had had a very early breakfast. they began to wish that they had saved some of the salmon for their dinner; but just then the endeavour was gliding between banks that had no tree or scrub, but only tufts of dry coarse grass on them, and donald saw a bandicoot run out of one of the tufts. up went the gun to his shoulder, and in a second mr. bandicoot had rolled over dead upon his back. a bandicoot is a very big brown kind of rat—nicer to eat than any rabbit. the boys soon made a fire, and baked the bandicoot in the ashes, in his skin; and they relished him ten times more than the preserved salmon. rat, and tea without sugar or milk, may not seem a very inviting bill of fare, but you know the delectus says that hunger is the best sauce, and, besides, baked bandicoot anybody might like.
30
harry and donald had some more shooting that day. about a mile from the place where they had taken their dinner they found a break in the creek-bank, filled up with tall rusty bulrushes. they got out of the cot, and pushed their way through the rushes, looking out very carefully for snakes, and sometimes sinking into the slush below the baked upper earth, just as if their feet had gone through a pie-crust, and on the other side they found a lagoon full of water-fowl. then they forced the endeavour through the rushes—she made a great black steaming furrow in the yellow ground—and launched her down the dry border of the lagoon, and pulled about in her, popping away in turns, and fancying themselves in fairy land. there were two or three black swans cruising proudly backwards and forwards, and fleets of piebald geese, and grey geese, and sooty ducks, and silvery ducks, and chestnut ducks with emerald necks, and musk ducks with double chins, and all their bodies under water. it was very funny to see their heads and necks moving about, as if they had lost their bodies and were looking for them. there were coots, too, on the banks of the lagoon, and purple herons and white herons holding up one leg as if they were trying how long they could do it for a wager; and ibises with untidy tufts of feathers on their breasts, that looked like costermongers’ dirty cravats dangling out of their waistcoats, and native companions, great light blue cranes lifting their long legs out of the mud, and trumpeting “look out!” to one another, when the endeavour was coming their way. there were beautiful water-lilies on the lagoon, also, with broad round leaves like shields of malachite, and great blossoms of alabaster, and blue and rose-coloured china. the boys, however, were too busy with the water-fowl to look at the water-flowers. they kept on popping away until the moon had been up for some time, and the bitterns were booming in the swamps all round, and the nankeen cranes were stalking about, nodding their white crest-plumes like life guardsmen, and croaking, “now we’ll make a night of it.”
32
when harry and donald left off shooting, they found that they had fired away all their powder and shot except two charges, and that they had got three little ducks. they made a very merry supper off one, baking it on the lagoon bank, as they had baked the bandicoot, and then they went to sleep by their fire. early in the morning, just as the laughing jackass was hooting before daybreak, donald woke. the moon had gone down, and so had the fire, and donald, though it was summer, felt very chilly.
33
he got up to stamp his feet and stir up the fire. what do you think he saw? an iguana—that’s a great lean lizard—sneaking off with the two ducks that were to serve for breakfast and dinner. donald flung a hot log at him, but it only made the lizard run the faster. plenty of red sparks were scattered about, but the two ducklings were not dropped.
“hech, weel,” said donald (he had picked up a little scotch from his father). “it’s nae guid greetin’ ower spilt milk;” and he lay down again and slept like a top, until harry woke him, asking him what ever could have become of the ducks? they had to breakfast on tea alone that morning. they tried to shoot a duck, but they had made the birds wild, and they were very anxious not to waste their precious powder, and so they did not succeed.
when they had hauled the cot into the creek again, they were half inclined to go back to wonga-wonga, but they determined to go on for one day more.
34
they looked about eagerly for something to shoot, but everything except insects seemed to have vanished from the creek. on both sides there were stony ridges with scarcely a blade of grass on them. one landrail ran along the bank, calling out “ship, ship,” as if it was hailing the endeavour, but donald missed it when he fired at it. harry took the gun then, and said he would try to shoot a fish. he saw something black wriggling about in the water, which he thought was an eel, and he fired and hit it; but it was a snake, and it bit itself before it died; so they were obliged to leave it in the water, instead of cooking it on shore and getting a dinner as white and delicate as a roast chicken.
still, however, the boys determined not to turn back until next day; and late in the afternoon they got more fish than they could eat. they came upon a black fellow’s “fish-trap”—a kind of little mud hut, thatched with dry grass—and out of it they scooped up a score or two of black fish, and what they call trout in australia. they were not very tasty, but the boys enjoyed the little fellows greatly when they had grilled them, though they had no soy.
35
when they had finished their dinner, they rowed on to find the black fellows’ camp, which they knew could not be very far off. the moon had come up again, however, before they reached it. the creek, fringed with shea-oaks with dark long leaves like lanky tassels, wriggled about there like a snake. long before the boys got to the camp, they heard the measured tramp of feet and fierce shouts, and when they got there they saw ever so many black fellows, streaked with ochre, dancing and brandishing their boomerangs and waddies, whilst the “gins” (that’s the women) in their ’possum cloaks and blankets, squatted on the ground beating time.
36
harry and donald were not a bit afraid of black fellows. they were generally very friendly in those parts, and often came to wonga-wonga. but it happened that the black fellows were in a very savage mood. they had been doing a little sheep-stealing, and an overseer had fired at them, and killed one of them; and so they had made up their minds to kill the first white fellow they came across, in revenge. as soon as they saw the cot, they rushed down to the creek, shouting out, “wah! wah! wah!” and they pulled the boys on shore, and burnt the cot on the great fire they had lighted to keep the “debil debil” away. then they jabbered for a long time, disputing which of the boys they should kill; and harry and donald, brave little fellows though they were, most heartily wished themselves back at wonga-wonga.
“the black fellows were in a very savage mood.”
37
all of a sudden, however, a black fellow held up his finger, and then a dozen of them put their ears to the ground. it was horses’ hoofs they heard in the distance. then they jabbered again, and all the blacks ran into the scrub, leaving the boys, but carrying off their gun. in a few minutes up galloped mr. lawson, and sydney, and a stockman. the boys had been hunted far and wide, but it was only that day that the cot had been missed, and so a clue found to their whereabouts. mr. lawson, having heard that the up-creek blacks were “in a scot,” and fearing that the youngsters might fall into their hands, had then started with his little party in pursuit. of course, he could not help feeling very angry with the young truants, but there was no time to tell them so then. boomerangs and spears began to whiz out of the scrub, and there was no good in three men stopping to fight with a hundred whom they could not see. so mr. lawson pulled donald on to his horse, and the stockman pulled harry, and off they galloped; whilst sydney brought up the rear, firing his revolver right and left into the scrub as he rode away.
